The present invention relates to knives and, more particularly, to knives of a type having a reservoir of blades for replacement of an active blade.
In my prior co-pending application, Ser. No. 894,676, I disclose a utility knife made up of two mating halves held together by a sleeve slipped over the exterior of the two halves. One of the halves includes a blade reservoir for receiving a supply of replaceable blades. The reservoir is normally covered by the sleeve. The disclosed knife includes means for feeding the blades, one at a time, from the reservoir to an active position. It also includes means for releasing a blade from the active position for discard.
When the reservoir is empty, it may be replenished by sliding the sleeve off the two halves and installing a fresh supply of blades.
The possibility exits that a user may slide the sleeve off the two halves while the reservoir still contains blades. If the half containing the reservoir faces downward, the blades in the reservoir may drop out. Some types of blades have sharp points and/or edges which could damage objects if they should fall from the knife. It is thus undesirable to permit the sleeve to be removed when the half containing the reservoir faces downward.